Blindness
by sydneysages
Summary: For Sydney Sage, life is complicated. Her relationship with Adrian is confusing - and essentially illegal - and figuring out romance isn't her strong point. Trying to keep Jill and the others out of danger whilst Lia's on the prowl and there's someone who knows a little too much about her, well, it's not exactly easy. /Post-The Golden Lily.
1. Coffee

This is my first attempt at a Sydney/Adrian multichap (and the first multichap I've attempted in a while)! I don't own anything, and I won't throughout the entire fic.

It's set after The Golden Lily, but it'll be AU to The Indigo Spell (primarily due to the state of the relationship between Adrian & Sydney)

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Love is clockworks,  
And it's cold steel  
Fingers too numb to feel  
Squeeze the handle  
Blow out the candle  
Blindness  
**Jack White, Love is Blindness**

I sighed. During the two weeks since the whole Warriors of Light incident—a small part of me was still amused by the cheesiness of their name, no matter the danger that they posed—I seemed to have sighed a lot more than was normal for me. What with everything that had gone on, and the consequences of decisions I'd made…well, things weren't exactly how I had hoped they'd be.

First off, there was Jill. I didn't have to guess at the origin of her coldness towards me; the bond passed to her what Adrian was feeling, and I didn't exactly think he was at his warmest towards me. More than that, ever since I had known her I knew that she had a special bond with him—even before the spirit intervention—and she felt that I had wronged him to new levels. We were barely speaking, our only communication being forced conversation between the members of our 'family' who attended Amberwood on feeding days, or when there was something which came up that she couldn't avoid talking to me about.

Next, there was Angeline. Whilst she had settled down after her initial issues—not to mention her digression from normal behaviour when the sexual health group visited the school—things continued to pose an issue for her, especially dealing with people who had double standards. We agreed on something in this sort of behaviour being unacceptable in anyone, but the way that Angeline dealt with it continued to be wrong; a girl's entire chemistry work had been disintegrated by a mixture of compounds tipped on it in class, and whilst there was no obvious link to Angeline, it was clear that she was the main suspect. Underneath my disapproval at her reacting with actions rather than words—slightly hypocritical from me nowadays considering my growing presence in the magic world—I was actually slightly impressed with her correct use of the chemicals. She had asked me for help with identifying different chemicals' functions, then put it all together to form a revenge plan which hadn't actually resulted in any consequences for herself. Still, I had to worry about her; one of these days, she'd have a tail on her, and if they saw her doing anything like that, she'd be expelled faster than she could say her fake name. Not even my ability to twist truths and utilise technicalities could save her then.

And then there was Adrian. By no means was he my smallest issue, I just couldn't bring myself to think about him or anything that related to him; doing so either made me far more sad than I ought to be, or infuriated. In the many social calls I'd had to make with him there during the past fortnight, I had avoided him as much as possible, just as he had me—besides for the odd look, which held a mixture of sadness and volatile anger within it. I was sure that he was talking behind my back, but I didn't want to confront him or ask anyone else at the risk of sounding like I cared—I didn't. I missed him more than I ought to—far, far more than I ought to—but there was nothing between us. Or, perhaps more accurately, there was nothing that could be between us. So whatever we had thought we had felt—or at least me, as I couldn't speak for any vampire, even one like Adrian—it was probably just fantasy, or a reaction to the situation we had faced earlier, at the Warriors' base. He had saved me and I had saved him (though, admittedly, my saving him was only necessary because I had used something which made my skin crawl to think about) and we had just tried to show appreciation to one another for that. That was it.

I groaned. Once again, unwittingly, I had found myself thinking about Adrian and everything I had sworn to push to the back of my mind and forget about. Somehow whenever I didn't have anything to actively think about, my mind always ended up back here, looking at his face when I told him I didn't feel anything for him and that we could never be together. Usually, it was in my final few seconds of consciousness before falling asleep, replacing chemical equations I had never thought I would miss. And yet I couldn't do anything about it because to bring it up would be to acknowledge it had happened, something which would only bring Adrian pleasure—if he would even speak to me long enough for a short discussion on the matter.

Anxious to push Adrian Ivashkov from my mind, I looked out of the windscreen to see whether there was anything I needed from any of the shops around here. It was too much of an inconvenience to return to Amberwood whilst Jill was at Clarence's with Eddie and Angeline, and I hadn't had any particular destination in mind when I had drove into Palm Springs. There was no need for me to buy any more clothes, my kit had been replenished last week, and the only shop that I would possibly want to go in around here—the bookshop—was closed for refurbishment. That left me one option: Spencer's.

My heart yearned for coffee, and I couldn't think of any reason why I shouldn't have any, so I found myself locking Latte and almost running to the shop. If I had been a legitimate senior at Amberwood, I would have spent the past four years campaigning for coffee to be provided at breakfast, lunch—anytime, any place. As it was, I had a small machine in my room and my privileges provided me the chance to go out and get coffee any time before curfew—but having a steady, constant stream would definitely have been my preference.

Opening the door to the coffee shop, the familiar aroma of coffee hit me, and I almost swooned at the scent. I hadn't had any coffee today, due to a power shortage in my room fusing my plug; whilst I fixed it, it didn't leave me enough time to make coffee _and_ get to central campus in time for class. If it wasn't for the fact that the aroma increased in intensity further into the shop, I would have stood in the doorway for sometime; the bar lured me in, however, with the promise of coffee made for me.

The smile on my face at entering the coffee shop faded, however, when I looked to see the barrista behind the counter: Brayden.

Whilst things hadn't exactly ended badly—other than him dumping me, that is, as I never expected not to be in control of a situation—it didn't mean that I wanted to see him when I was trying to find a distraction from Adrian. Even though we had some issues following the discovery of his secret identity, Trey continued to be a friend, and I had wanted the chance to bounce some banter off one another. He was pretty much the only person I could do that with now, and it would have been good to alleviate this slightly melancholy mood with a bit of witty sarcasm. It was a shame that it wasn't to be.

"Sydney!" Brayden didn't seem any different to how he normally greeted me; if anything, he seemed almost cheerier. "Would you like your usual?"

"I'll have it iced, if that's alright." I made a split-second decision to go for the cooler version, having realised that as the coffee aroma increased, so did the heat. It really didn't feel as though we were closer to December than October.

Brayden got on with making the drink straight away, methodical with the steps, something I appreciated; I usually couldn't watch as people made my coffee, otherwise it made my skin crawl to see them add things in such a random order. As he pushed it across the counter to me, he stopped, his hand still on the cup.

After a few seconds of silence, I looked up at him, wondering whether he thought I didn't have the money to pay for it—I was irresponsible, after all. The puzzled look on his face dissuaded me from that line of thought, however, so I simply asked, "what's wrong?"

"There's something different about you," Brayden responded, his lack of specifics irritating me. Of _course_ there was something different about me; there were lots of things which had changed over the course of the past two weeks, my access to coffee one of them.

I replied without thinking of who I was talking to. "Yeah, I think I adapted to become more like your true soul mate," I responded, realising only afterwards what I had said. "Um…" I trailed off, not sure how to damage control this. I was used to dealing with dead Strigoi or making humans forget that they'd seen a Moroi's fangs; I wasn't used to correcting what had come out of my own mouth.

Brayden's reply had a blush on my face within words. "Uh, I sincerely doubt you could have had a complete personality overhaul in the space of two weeks—it isn't scientifically possible. Unless you had a crash or fall of some sort and then suffered from amnesia, allowing you to change how you acted, though I'm sure Trey would have said something about you being in an accident—and you have no physical injuries to back up such a story." His next words mortified me even more, especially because I had argued against such a thing with Trey before he had set us up together. "Also, there's statistically no such thing as a soul mate."

"I know," I tried to say, but he cut me off again.

"I think I've figured out what's different about you," he continued, looking me up and down, though there was no chance that it could ever be mistaken for a 'romantic' once over (though how anyone found the idea of someone appraising them like a pig for slaughter, I have no idea). It was clinical, through and through. "It's that cross necklace, you're not wearing it. It's the first time that I've seen you without it."

As he spoke, my hand went to my bare chest of its own accord, resting against skin when it should have been coming into contact with the cross which held so many memories for it. It was such an integral part of me, I felt lost without it—an emotion only heightened now that someone had actually noticed it was missing.

"I, uh, yeah," I said, more on autopilot than actually thinking about my answer. "My brother's going through a rough time, and I thought that a closer tie to religion might help him. He's always had an easier time with things when he can visualise it." I wanted to smile as I said this, my mind instantly jumping to Adrian's creativity and (when sober) his intriguing artwork designs, but my brain didn't want to smile when thinking of the Ivashkov Moroi.

Brayden shrugged. "I didn't think he would be the type to wear jewellery, but I guess everyone's got their own personal tastes," he said, blowing the only hole in my cover story. He didn't seem to think it too important, though. "That's three fifty."

I handed over the cash without even really thinking about it and took my coffee to a table in the back corner. Normally I would have left straight away, but considering I had nothing to do and a lot to think about, I didn't want to potentially get into a situation where I wasn't paying full attention on the road. As I sat down, my hand gravitated towards my chest once again, and I set the coffee down on the table, my mind engrossed in the cross and who had it in their possession.

I gave Adrian my cross, something I've had for years, something I treasure like a second skin. If you'd have asked me a month ago if I would have given anything of mine to a vampire—mortal or not—I would have recoiled in disgust; it was bad enough even touching their hand in a brief handshake. Now, I had not only given something to a Moroi, but I'd given them something I adore, something which symbolises more than anything else I possess. And it showed something else—it showed that no matter what I felt about Adrian, I trusted him. Otherwise, I would never have given him something which means so much to me.

How long I spent sitting there, I have no idea, only that my iced coffee wasn't quite so iced when I finally tore myself away from thinking about Adrian and my trusting him to return my attention to my favourite drink. Even though I drank it quickly, it didn't hold the same appeal as it normally did for me, and I found myself wanting to leave Spencer's faster than I usually would.

As I left, I made myself a promise that the wacky correlations I'd made between trusting Moroi and loaning out crosses (something I actually wanted back, not that I knew how to ask) would remain in the doorway of Spencer's, not to be touched again until I knew what my own thoughts meant. Not that I expected _that_ to happen for quite a long time.

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	2. Text Messages

Apologies for the delay between the last chapter and this one; I forgot what I was writing!

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I groaned. Part of it was a natural reaction to a 3:30am wake-up alarm—set so I could write a semi-literate report for the Alchemists to assure them that the mission was indeed going according to plan—but it was largely due to what my brain had dredged out of my subconscious for me to dream about: Adrian Ivashkov. The man who I wouldn't hesitate dating for a heartbeat—if he was human. It didn't matter that he lived, breathed, aged, died the same as me—though most likely a good few decades later tan the average human—he still needed blood to live, still performed magic naturally (hypocritical of me to say, but very few were aware of my abilities) and still was considered an abomination to humankind.

As I got up, I realised one definite benefit of being up before even sunrise: I got prime access to Amberwood's hot water. Whilst there was usually enough for the dorm (the fees this school charged, you'd expect at least adequate hot water) sometimes it was impossible to get the water up to the scalding temperature I usually appreciated.

Midway through lathering up my hair, my mind jumped instantly to something not exactly appropriate for any moment in life, let alone naked in a shower—and it was linked to my dream: Adrian. He wasn't doing anything; it was just a **stoic** image of him leaning against a balcony, beautifully sculpted old buildings forming his backdrop.

And try as I might, I could not get it to leave my mind.

I tried everything, thinking through every type of mushroom, various timezones worldwide, reasons for animal behaviour—nothing succeeded in getting the image out of my head. Even humming a ridiculous song couldn't get it to leave, primarily because the only reason I knew it (a cheesy pop ballad by some apparently famous band) was because Adrian had played it whilst I was in his presence.

It was driving me insane.

Gritting my teeth, I got out of the shower, quickly dressed and began to blowdry my hair, hoping the noise and task at hand would distract me enough to stop thinking about Adrian being in my head.

And then, it hit me: what if it was _him_ who put that image in my mind? He'd said before he could visit me in my dreams and he did attempt to before I panicked him out of my head. What if he had kept it a secret that not only could he do that, but he could project whatever image he desired into the head of another?

What if this was his idea at revenge for me not reciprocating his feelings for me, primarily because he was a vampire?

Once the idea was in my head, it was all I could think about—I had to have an answer, and my desire to know whether it was true or not led me to forget that Adrian and I weren't exactly on speaking terms. I rushed through the rest of the shower and dressed with equal speed, only hesitating as I considered how to phrase my question.

_Your ability to walk through dreams—have you managed to make yourself appear in people's thoughts now, too?_

His response was almost instantaneous, though I made myself blowdry my hair as straight as it could go before I allowed myself to respond.

_Why Sage, have you been thinking about me a lot?_

I groaned; trust Adrian to not actually give a response to the question but twist my entire question round to the idea that I was in love with him. Which, obviously, I wasn't, otherwise there wouldn't have been any awkwardness between us for the past couple of weeks.

_No, it just seemed like something YOU would do. Take it you're just not competent enough._

I didn't like Moroi magic, but the joke came easily to me; it seemed that joking at Adrian's expense was more of a priority for me than avoiding magic. It was only after I'd sent the text that I realised both the double standard with magic discussion (considering last time we'd discussed it, I hadn't exactly taken things well) and secondly the text conversation negated the steadfast silence we'd had in place since that night. I didn't want him to get the wrong impression about us and though I sincerely missed us talking, a close relationship would only end badly for the both of us: it would put me in even further danger if the Alchemists find out about my befriending multiple Moroi and him in danger of never getting over this crush on me.

Really, I shouldn't even be texting Adrian; if the Alchemists decided to probe into my records I believed they could even see what texts I had sent. They were _that_ good. In my position here, it would be far more likely for me to be ringing Moroi contacts for short phone calls in opposition to drawn out text messages.

Adrian replied before I could negatively view my actions any further, and in comparison to his light and jokey tone of his previous text, he sounded much more like the person I'd been in contact with for the past few weeks. He was cold and abrupt—or as much as you can be through text messages—and definitely not the person I had grown to like over the past months.

_Guess not. Got stuff to do. _

I didn't see the purpose in replying to this so I placed my phone back down on the dresser and continued to get ready, wondering how much trouble my 'charges' would get in today.

…

I wasn't disappointed.

Between Eddie getting hauled into the head's office to explain why he threw an entire tray of puddings at a girl in sophomore year (he didn't but found himself saying he had in order to protect Angeline), Jill breaking three taps in the girl's toilets on central campus (caused by her inability to control her magic, something which stressed me out more than I let on) and my lessons, I barely had a second to myself throughout the entire day. I also didn't get a chance to eat anything, something which I regretted after spending ninety minutes arguing non-stop with various members of the senior leadership at Amberwood as to why Eddie shouldn't receive suspension for his inexcusable actions. Still, I knew that we'd be ordering pizza or some other unhealthy substitute after the feedings at Clarence's, and whilst that wasn't what I wanted to be filling my body with, at least I would get a few calories. Not that I wanted to admit that something Adrian had said was right, but his comment about me never being as slim as Moroi girl hit me hard, and made me realise that I should put a little weight on.

That didn't mean that I was going to suddenly balloon six dress sizes, but it did make me feel a little guilty for coffee forming a day's sustenance.

Suddenly, there was someone beside me: Jill.

"I'm really sorry," she said apologetically, matching my stride as we walked towards Latte. Eddie and Angeline were meeting us there, having had to go and have yet another discussion about appropriate actions for dhampirs. "I didn't mean to; I just lost control and—" I held a hand up to stop her; I was slightly more used to Moroi magic than I was before, but that didn't mean I liked discussing it.

"It's fine, Jill," I replied, turning to look at her. Her clothes were still damp, along with her hair; she hadn't bothered to get changed between the end of school and now, it appeared. "But, uh, would you be able to sit on something in the car? I don't want the upholstery getting damp and then smelling…" I trailed off, wondering whether this was appropriate.

Jill merely nodded and we walked the rest of the way to the car with her chattering away about something she did in chemistry class, apparently pleased I had forgiven her for her mishap with the magic. I wasn't really paying attention, though, I was too preoccupied with thinking about my thoughts and whether or not thinking about certain things meant that I was indeed interested in what I was thinking about—or if I was just thinking about something random and it didn't mean anything.

Even as I thought this, however, I knew that it was a lie; nothing I did was _ever_ random, at least not intentionally. I was under no illusions that my thoughts were any different to this; I just didn't want to admit the alternative. To do so would be to admit that I was wrong before, when I was in Adrian's flat, and that was something I definitely didn't want to admit, something I couldn't admit because if the Alchemists found out anything was going on, re-education would be my next port of call. And unlike Keith, I wouldn't see another living soul for a long, long time, of that I was almost certain.

"Uh, Sydney, are you going to unlock the car?" Eddie asked me, and it took me a second to realise that I was just standing next to the driver's door as though waiting for another to release the locking mechanism.

Blushing, I rectified this, opening the car and slipping into my seat, turning the ignition before even putting my seatbelt on. After ensuring Angeline had put her belt on—something she normally felt was unnecessary despite my constant warnings about police and possible accidents—I drove off towards Clarence's.

"Aren't we picking Adrian up?" Jill asked a minute or two after we drove past the entrance to his street. I had almost driven down there, the routine of visiting his home before Clarence's too ingrained in my mind, but I had refrained.

"No," I replied, realising after speaking how frosty my tone was. "He's arranged to get there himself, just as he has for the past two weeks, Jill."

In the rear view mirror, I could see her face screwing up slightly and knew that she was actively trying to get into Adrian's head to see where he was and how he was feeling; I knew that because the next time our eyes met, her expression was as frosty as I'd ever seen it.

Whilst I knew that she was only acting that way because Adrian's feelings seeped into her, it still annoyed me slightly that she was taking out emotions on me which weren't even hers. What had passed between Adrian and I was none of her business—and yet his saving her life _made_ it her business. Nothing we ever discussed was private, and if I needed yet another reason to explain why a relationship between us wouldn't work, Jill was it.

With the silence in the car growing uneasy, I was pleased when we pulled up at Clarence's. Adrian's car was already here, a mustang I could only dream of getting my hands on, and I gritted my teeth as we walked into the house.

Inside, we found Adrian sitting in the living room watching TV, though this soon stopped when the four of us walked in.

"Jailbait!" he called out, standing up and opening his arms for Jill to run into. It was as if they hadn't seen each other in a month—and as if she couldn't read his thoughts whenever she wanted.

Whilst discussions about Moroi politics and dhampir news occurred between Eddie, Angeline and Adrian—things I really ought to learn about, though had no desire to from Adrian—I sat down on the sofa and began scrolling through Google News, interested in what was going on in the rest of the world. My attention was piqued by an argument to protect Greek and Roman architecture from tourists, something I agreed with but selfishly didn't want to occur so I could still visit the Parthenon, so I didn't realise when Eddie called my name.

"Well, well, Sydney Sage not paying attention, that's got to be a first," Adrian commented, though his tone didn't sound anything like I had once known it to be; it was cold and sounded as though he was poking the joke at my expense. One look at Jill's face suggested that he was conflicted, though how he was I had no idea.

"Do you want me to go get pizza or something?" I asked wearily, suddenly desperate for some calories. I wondered if I had time to grab a salad or something whilst I waited for their greasy, calorie-filled takeout order, before remembering my prior decision: I would eat some of whatever they ordered.

Angeline nodded enthusiastically. Whilst the Keepers weren't completely isolated from modern society, pizza was a food she had only discovered upon leaving her family. "We want three large pepperoni pizzas, four chips and as much soda as you can carry…please." The last word was tacked on, almost as if she had barely remembered her manners.

"Alright, I'll be back in a bit," I said quietly, but nobody seemed to hear me. The only person who had ever volunteered to come with me was currently sat staring in the opposite direction to where I was now standing, as though it was all he could do to pretend I didn't exist.

As I drove, the only thing I could think about was Jill and how this was affecting her. It wasn't an ideal situation when Adrian and I were talking and getting along, her knowing his thoughts; it was even worse when he decided he had a crush on me. However, now we were at an impasse, unable to advance beyond the current 'we're not talking to one another' stage we were at, it was as if she was divided. When Adrian's thoughts weren't too strong, she was her usual self with me, bubbly and as happy as she could be—it was only when they were in close proximity, or his emotions were more prominent, that she changed to become cold like this. It was disconcerting sometimes to see two completely different personalities from someone I had grown to consider a friend over the past months, and it simply made me decide that it was imperative Adrian and I resolved our issues, if not for our sake then for Jill's.

Parking and avoiding drivers who couldn't drive their beautiful, classic cars provided a brief interlude from the self-pity I seemed to be lavishing myself with, as did ordering the ridiculous amount of food those I was charged to protect wanted.

But the thing that distracted me most of all was what I saw on the television on the wall of the takeaway.

It was an advert for a clothing company—but it wasn't just any clothing company.

It was Lia's.

And the model used for the advert was Jill.

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